Paul McCartney Partners with Concord Music Group forExclusive Global Marketing and Distribution of Revered Solo and Wings Catalog

Multi-album rollout begins with August release of '73's classicBand On The Run featuring remastered audio, enhanced packaging and rare bonus content

Paul McCartney's MPL and Concord Music Group, one of the world's leading independent music companies today announced an historic agreement to globally market and distribute McCartney's venerated solo and Wings catalog, which encompass 40 years of cherished, classic material from the most successful songwriter and recording artist in music history. Indeed, the music legend has sold an astonishing 100 million solo singles and 700 million albums world-wide in his unparalleled career. The announcement coincides with the 40th anniversary of McCartney, his fabled first solo album released April, 1970.

This exclusive global arrangement, will cover both physical and digital distribution of McCartney's treasured post Beatles catalog including landmark solo albums such as McCartney, Ram, McCartney II, Tug Of War, Pipes of Peace, Give My Regards To Broad Street, Press To Play, Flowers in the Dirt, Off the Ground, Flaming Pie, Driving Rain, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, Memory Almost Full, and Good Evening New York City. The classic Wings albums include Wildlife, Red Rose Speedway, Band On The Run, Venus and Mars, Wings At The Speed of Sound, Wings Over America, London Town and Back To The Egg. The catalog also includes the inventive, highly regarded albums recorded under the McCartney pseudonyms Percy "Thrills" Thrillington, The Fireman and Twin Freaks.

McCartney fans can look forward to an ambitious and rewarding reissue program beginning in August of 2010 with Band On The Run; Paul McCartney & Wings' classic #1 album from 1973 that spawned the immortal title song as well as the smash hit "Jet". It will be available in a variety of configurations, including a special collector's multi-disc edition with remastered audio, enhanced packaging and rare bonus content.

In 2007 Concord Records and Starbucks partnered to form Hear Music whose inaugural release was Paul McCartney's highly successful, critically acclaimed album Memory Almost Full. The McCartney-Concord relationship has since blossomed to include the 2009 release of McCartney's historic multi-disc live CD/DVD Good Evening New York City and now this landmark multi-year global marketing and distribution partnership.

"Since the release of Memory Almost Full in 2007 I've had a good working relationship with Concord and enjoyed our mutual love of music," stated McCartney. "I'm looking forward to continuing this relationship with the new catalog campaign. I'm always looking for new ways and opportunities to get my music to people and Concord share this passion."

"Working with Paul McCartney, the MPL team and this tremendous catalog is an unbelievable honor," stated Glen Barros, Concord Music Group President and CEO. "To so many of us here at Concord and to millions of people all over the world, Paul's music has formed a big part of 'life's soundtrack'. So to now be a part of representing this amazing body of work is nothing short of a dream come true."

The only Paul albums I have are Red Rose Speedway, Wingspan: Hits & History, Back In The US, and Chaos And Creation In The Backyard, so I'm definitely going to buy some of these remasters once I have the money.

Musical Videos: 1. Band on the Run (5:10) 2. Mamunia (4:52) 3. Album Promo (7:42) (Featuring Band on the Run, Mrs Vandebilt, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, Bluebird) 4. Helen Wheels (3:39) 5. Wings In Lagos (3:01) (Edit of mute black and white footage of a day out in Lagos during the recording sessions with a soundbed based on an alternative version of Band on the Run) 6. Osterley Park (15:20) (Edit of behind the scenes footage at the album cover photoshoot featuring all participants) 7. One Hand Clapping (51:49)

“One Hand Clapping” – a documentary programme originally made for TV featuring studio performances It was filmed & recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London, August 1974 Directed by David Litchfield

Paul McCartney has started to make some publicity for the first release in his new remastered album series, christened "Archive Collection", which starts with the release of "Band On The Run" on November 1st in the UK and November 2nd in the USA. It was big news last year when McCartney took his back catalogue off EMI and brought them with him over to the American company Concord Music.Word is that Concord Music was advised to release the various McCartney albums chronologically, starting with "McCartney" from 1970, an advice they chose to ignore in favour of starting with the album that has been McCartney's best seller ever since it was first released in 1973, "Band On The Run". He recorded it with his fledgling group, "Wings" in Lagos, Nigeria, after two of the group members deserted just before the group was about to leave England. The album is being made available in a variety of formats, besides the three different editions depicted above, there's of course the digital download and the 2LP vinyl edition. Don't hold your breath for that last one, Concord isn't very proficient in delivering vinyl editions of their releases.Long standing McCartney fans in the UK are probably wishing that he'd have stayed with EMI, as you'll have noticed from the above picture, the various versions are quite a bit more pricey in the UK than in the USA. The cheapest one, the single CD remaster costs $13.99, which at current rates should have translated into £8.93. Instead, it'll set the British fan back £15.49, which equals $24.26! Of course, the more money you spend, the greater the loss. The most expensive edition is priced at $79.99, which should have been £51. Instead, it costs £77.49, which is a whopping $121.35! This means that a British fan who buys the 4 disc deluxe edition will have to spend $41.36 more than the American fan. Why? Because Concord is an American company, and the editions sold in the UK has to be imported from the USA. The same holds true for my country, Norway. Here I'll have to pay $231 for the deluxe edition, nearly three times the US price. If these releases had been made by the EMI, a pan-European edition would have been manufactured and distributed in the UK by EMI and in Norway by the Norwegian branch of EMI. Going "independant" may have been a bold move by McCartney, but we fans are as usual the ones who end up paying for it.And by the way, Concord missed out on this opportunity of releasing the definitive edition by leaving out a surround sound version of the album. Those of us who has the possibility of playing SACD and DVD-Audio discs still has to purchase the 1997 DTS release on DVD-A, now a collector's item.